


Sub-Zero

by lunambulism



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: All my angst fics have basically the same tags hM, Angst, Character Death, Depression, Developing Friendships, Eating Disorders, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Platonic IzaNamie, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 10:21:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6047968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunambulism/pseuds/lunambulism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Eight cups a day, you should know. The water isn’t ‘dirty’.”</p><p>Izaya only laughs disingenuously, rolls the pills around his mouth and pushes the water back to her, before spinning languidly on his office chair. Namie shakes her head and returns the bottle of pills – not even half empty yet after how many months was it – to the medicine cabinet.</p><p>Behind her, she can hear him guffawing again, crazed, bitter and torn with loathing and self-hate and all the things that have divided Orihara Izaya from his own life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sub-Zero

A miniscule twitch of a finger.

Hitch of a breath.

Shudders.

 

(Little things build.)

 

She watches, day by day, as her employer breaks down like snow melting on the pathway and is washed away from his own life. She would like to call herself perspective, catching bits and pieces of her boss’s abnormalities, but they’re sometimes just so painfully obvious that she can’t help but reject the fact.

 

Disinfecting the laptop.

Refusing take-away.

Regular washing of hands.

 

She tries to pretend that she isn’t scrunching her face up into a scowl when she spots Izaya from the corner of her eye, rubbing disinfectant alcohol onto his hands and staring in mild distaste at the small, black dot of filth on the outside of his window, red eyes bland and lips pursed into a steady line.

(She can’t help but ignore, ignore, ignore all the signs and abnormalities and things that are screaming at her that something’s wrong wrong _wrong_.)

Inside, deep, deep inside, she wishes she could help. She wishes she knew how to stop him, and wake him from his walking trance day by day, night by night, and maybe after all he’s just playing around and acting it all out – wouldn’t that be nice – to see her reaction–

 

Panic attacks.

Weak appetite.

Insomnia.

 

–But at the end of the day, when the sun lets drizzles of golden-yellow-orange splay across the room and Orihara Izaya’s still staring blankly outside, hands gripping the open-lidded hand disinfectant _obsessively-compulsively_ , Yagiri Namie continues to fool only herself as she closes the door behind her.

-.-.-

In the last few months before – although it only seemed like yesterday – Namie notices that Izaya is leaving the apartment a lot more, sometimes under the guise of petty excuses. She turns away with a huff each time, reminding herself over and over that it’s none of her business what that asshole’s doing out there and why should she even care about _him_.

Izaya was a man who played with human lives and morals like he played with stringed puppets, merciless and venomously clear-cut to the point where a simple request for files could be warily interpreted as ‘come closer here so I can slice your throat’.

It’s all very circular, and Namie hasn’t the time to wrap her head around it, only focusing on her work – and Izaya’s – and perhaps leading her lingering thoughts back to Seiji and what he’s doing and how he’s feeling.

 

(Now, though, she realises she hardly ever ponders about her endearing little brother anymore.)

 

When she scrapes together her files to place back into their rightful position on Izaya’s desk or in the shelves and is ready to pack up and leave for the night, Izaya’s sitting on the couch behind her, as quiet as a mouse with a quirky little smile and warm, carmine eyes.

 

Namie doesn’t ask.

 

(And now, Izaya refuses to go outside for whatever reason, his hands dry and brittle and painful to anything he touches and he no longer laughs or whines or sighs in mock-disappointment.)

 

(Maybe Namie should have asked.)

-.-.-

She slaps a pair of plain black gloves gravely onto Izaya’s desk one morning, eyes turned away so that she wouldn’t be able to see the raven’s flaking, peeling hands from the fixated long-term hand-washing.

Izaya doesn’t say anything, but mouths a vague, lingering ‘thank you’ and what could have been an apology but instead, died on the edge of his tongue and cracked a small smile that never really fully reached his fading eyes. It could have been more, but it wasn’t, and it never will be.

 

The brunette woman was too busy confiscating the five or so bottles of surgical antiseptic (from god knows where) in the file cabinet second from the bottom to acknowledge her employer’s straining grin and torn, cracked facial expressions that just simply aren’t what they used to be.

 

Between the twinging, forced, wounded smile and the obnoxious, absolutely infuriating sneer, she’s not sure which kind she despises more.

-.-.-

‘Obsessive-compulsive disorder’ is what Shinra calls it, grey eyes hard and a blue ballpoint pen tapping on the edge of his notepad. On it, was jotted notes on the prescribed medication to be taken and the ways Namie can help – or try to.

She’s sitting opposite the doctor, one leg crossed over and arms folded in a dismissive way, but she can’t fool anybody at this point, and she wonders why she’s trying.

Shinra tells the secretary that Izaya may need to see a proper psychiatrist to erase or at least reduce his condition. He then leans forward in all seriousness and asks.

 

“Do you know why he’s like this?”

 

Namie doesn’t respond immediately, shifting in her seat. The palms of her hands are starting to strain from gripping the strap of her handbag, and she lets go, breathes out.

Celty sets down small cups of tea, with the disheartening knowledge that it’ll probably be ignored and left to cool, but does it anyway. Her presence does relieve the atmosphere slightly, though.

“No.” Her answer was simple and straightforward. Shinra merely closed his eyes in response and leaned back.

 

“I see.”

 

(They both know that he doesn’t, and the bespectacled doctor suddenly seems years beyond his age in just a few minutes.)

-.-.-

She’s staying the night over for the first time.

 

Spoonfeeding her boss was a feat that could and would be laughed and mocked at, but Namie just couldn’t seem to find the will or heart in herself to think too much on that track.

Izaya’s refusing to eat as stubbornly as a bull, refusing to touch oily and used dishes and cutlery, torn between letting them mound up on the table and kitchen-top or facing the fact that he’ll need to wash them. Even with the gloves, he’s still not willing to touch kitchenware.

In the end, he gave up eating altogether, letting his hunger prowl freely and ignored the stings and pangs of his stomach and digestive system’s objections.

Seeing this, Namie refused to accept any kind of ‘I’m not hungry’ or ‘I’ll eat later’ bullshit. She forced the thin broth through Izaya’s stubborn, closed mouth and down his windpipe, with a lot of poking, prodding, snark and exasperation-exhaustion.

“You’re swallowing this before I _slice open_ your scrawny neck and tip the entire bowlful down your oesophagus. Eat.”

 

(She hadn’t meant for the last word to sound as pleading and desperate as it did.)

 

That night, she’s sleeping on the couch, and is sluggishly woken up by a light and the distinct sound of throwing up from the up-stairs bathroom.

-.-.-

Namie repeats to herself like a mantra that she doesn’t care.

It never really works.

It was slightly ludicrous how Namie had only willingly taken the job as Izaya’s secretary with the prospect of the preposterously large pay-check. Now, if anyone looked at the two of them, they seemed far, far from the original imagery.

 

“Izaya, take your medicine.”

 

Izaya grunts and enters into a staring competition with the container of capsules in vain, before shoving it away, wincing slightly when his tender, cracked skin of his hands make contact with the plastic. Namie sighs, trying to push and push the impending headache away, before unscrewing the lid – “Yes, I washed my hands.” – and pressing two tiny pills at the barrier of Izaya’s lips.

 

“What a stubborn idiot, you are.”

Namie’s not too sure whether she’s addressing that to her boss or simply to herself.

 

“When haven’t I been?” Izaya laughs weakly, a small gasp breaking through the middle, when Namie tries to use the opportunity to shove the pills into his mouth. He lets the round capsules sit on his tongue, refusing to swallow, and Namie shoots him a contemptuous glare, sliding a glass of water over the desk and toward pale, withered hands.

“Eight cups a day, you should know. The water isn’t ‘dirty’.”

 

Izaya only laughs disingenuously, rolls the pills around his mouth and pushes the water back to her, before spinning languidly on his office chair. Namie shakes her head and returns the bottle of pills – not even half empty yet after how many months was it – to the medicine cabinet.

 

Behind her, she can hear him guffawing again, crazed, bitter and torn with loathing and self-hate and all the things that have divided Orihara Izaya from his own life.

-.-.-

He hisses as the silver blade glints readily and slides down his pale, pale skin and the red leaks sluggishly as if in a trance.

The knife is cold, too _cold, too bitter_ and Izaya laughs breathily as he compares his own blood to his sins and self-loathing.

 

(What is he doing.)

-.-.-

She wants to be surprised – should be surprised, fearful, aghast – when Heiwajima Shizuo knocks on the door a late afternoon, just after a plentiful rainstorm, but she’s peculiarly expecting the so-called ‘beast’ of Ikebukuro. He has a three-way emotion pasted on his face – whether fake or real, she doesn’t know, _doesn’t care_ – like a paper mache, aggravation, exasperation and repentance.

Standing in front of the blonde man, she feels like she’s standing on the very edge of a precipice and there’s nothing behind her. A little push, and she’s toppling.

It’s enthralling in it’s own way.

 

“Heiwajima-san,” She starts off, eyeing the ex-bartender in front of her, and tries to keep a straight face at the sopping mess he’s making on the floor, “What can I do for you?”

 

“Is that flea here?” He grunts, shuffling on his feet and obviously very discontented at his drenched state. Namie resists the urge to fling Izaya’s mop in the storage cabinet at Shizuo. She opens her mouth to reply, but the blonde suddenly cuts her off with a swish of his hand.  
”What the fuck am I saying? Of course he’s here. Let me through, I gotta see him.”

“Heiwajima-san, please state your purpose for being here, as I am very doubtful that you’re here to not beat my employer to a bloody mess of skin and bones all over.”

 

Shizuo doesn’t immediately deny this, only runs a hand through his damp tendrils of hair and takes several deep breathes. He mutters something straying along the lines of ‘so it comes to this.’

“I’m.. not here to fight.” He winces at his own uncertain tone, and the pause in between just makes the state of fact seem like an improvised lie. Namie knows better though, and steps to the side a few paces, but still with her guard high and strong as she narrows her steely eyes at the way Shizuo stumbles slightly and accidentally deforms the doorway.

She quite literally chucks a pair of the biggest slippers she could find at him, but hardly provokes a reaction at the wide-eyed debt collector, with his chocolate eyes skimming over the absolutely spotless lounge room – not a speck of dust.

Namie probably won’t deny the fact that he’s not exaggerating.

“Make your visit quick. I’ll have to mop up the mess you’ve made at the entrance before Izaya sees it.”

 

There was a heavy thump resounding through the apartment that had them both stopping mid-step and mid-breath.

 

Shizuo doesn’t hear her, already storming up the stairs and towards the bathroom, slamming the door open thunderously loud without a warning – ‘call it a beast’s instinct’ is what Izaya would say if he saw it. Namie curses under her breath and runs up after him. Her eyes skid over to where Shizuo stands unmoving at the open doorway of the bathroom. Namie opens her mouth, but no sound comes out when her eyes skitter over to the floor where _it’s red, it’s red - it’s blood_ at a glance.

She too, stays rooted to her position. Shizuo is the first to snap out of his semi-trance.

 

_“Oi, Izaya-!”_

 

He’s sprawled on the floor, with the grotesque maroon-scarlet pouring around him like a splayed satin dress. There’s a rusty red-coated flick-blade near his right hand and his left is still pouring red, red, _red_ lethargically onto the pristine white bathroom tiles.

“Dammit, you flea, wake up! You better not be dead, you know, or you’ll be dead the second time once I finish wrangling your neck-!”  
Izaya’s rising and lowering of his chest was shallow, dangerously so, pants of breath stolen away little whimpers of pain every now and then.

 

“I’m calling Shinra,” Namie grits out, but her words were more of a command to herself to _start moving dammit_ than telling Shizuo where she’s going and what she’s doing.

 _The closest phone is in Izaya’s room just next door,_ she reminds herself, turning head to the closed door and with slim fingers around the doorknob – even the metal seemed _warm_ beneath her cold, clammy palm – she pushes her way in, blinking into the dim lighting. In the immense lack of lighting due to the clamped-shut curtains and the timeframe wedged right between evening and night-time, she half-gropes her way towards the phone seated on the bedside table. Even from inside the bedroom, Namie can pick up broken syllables of ear-piercing profanities and wavering commands from Shizuo to Izaya with no response back.

 

She grasps the receiver almost desperately and reach for the number-pad – she realises that her fingers are _shaking and uncontrolled_ – and pause; suspended in mid-air like a trapped bungee jumper, as she tries to recall Shinra’s number amongst the clean, blank state of her mind.

 

(Breathe.)

 

Namie takes in a lungful of air – she welcomes it – and lets it go after seconds which could be defined closer to half of perpetuity instead of a few hundred milliseconds. She closes her eyes and her fingers dance on the number-pad as though it was on her laptop.

The receiver’s fast-paced _beep, beep, beep_ s of numerical after numerical echo into her eardrum, and as obnoxious as they were, prancing in her mind, she could have sighed in relief when the looping sound of the line connecting and ringing started to be played.

 

(But she’s not in the clearing yet.)

 

 _“Shizu-chan..?”_ Her ears perk up to the sound of Izaya’s breathy rasps and Shizuo’s incomprehensible muttering. Her mind doesn’t have time to wander within the fact of whether the house would be torn down within the next five to ten minutes, and instead, she replays the dialling tone of the phone silently in her mind.

 

 _Please, please, please_ , she finds herself pleading, and finds her ego rupturing around the edges a little bit at her fraught tone, _pick up, pick up, pick up._  


_“The number you have dialled is currently-”_ No, no, no _no_ , “ _Either disconnected or-”_

 

The receiver almost slips from her loose grasp, but not quite yet, and she could hear Shizuo growling, “Stay awake, stay awake, _stay awake_ ,” in the far background. She’s assuming things are only going downhill and something sounding suspiciously like a choked sob presses past her lips.

 

_“Not in service. Please-.”_

 

She’s prepared to hang up within the next nanosecond and redial as many times as she would be able to because there is _no way_ to Neptune and back that the ambulance is taking Izaya to the nearest Shinjuku hospital with the possibility of the media swarming-

 

_“..Hello? Kishitani speaking-”_

 

The air leaves her body in one loud, shuddery exhale and she discovers that her knees are buckling. Shinra makes a sharp, surprised sound on the other end of the line.

 

“Kishitani-sensei, it’s Yagiri. Are you able to come over right now?” She herself was plenty surprised at how steady her tone of voice was despite her inner humble of incoherent thoughts there’s no composure, no venomous curses and it’s a _mess all over._

Shinra must have sensed even the teensiest prick of urgency in Namie’s voice (or maybe it was the loud breath she made just then), and his voice dropped down half an octave of what was his regular chirpy tone, “I’ll be there. Hang on.”

The line goes dead next to her ear.

With the nth calming yoga breath she takes within the last five minutes, she sets the receiver down, fingers dragging across the smoothness of the cool, wooden bedside table.

 

“Fuck, is there even a first aid kit in here-!” Shizuo’s voice is dangerously nearing a screaming pitch and volume and Namie begins to make her way as fast as she can.

Eyes wander even within the pitchy blackness now that the sun’s five-sixths set down and suddenly, at the speed of a heartbeat, _something_ has her twitching and unable to move, immobile in the middle of her boss’s sleeping quarters and she stares towards the right side of the room, wide irises reeling onto a petite picture frame that is sitting daintily on the top of the ebony-wood cupboard.

Through the last few strands of the sunset’s rays, she can make out two people in the picture, grinning at each other and faces hazardously close.

She creeps over almost cautiously, and her fingers brush the wooden frame tenderly, like stroking a newborn child. The wood on the front of the frame is darker and richer in colour than the back, and Namie decides that Izaya has had the frame lain down on it’s face for some time before lifting it up again.

It amazes her how the familiar black-haired man in the photo is smiling so naturally.

 

A grunt from the next room over snaps her away from her transient thoughts, and she paces to the bathroom, where Shizuo’s now knelt down and leaning over Izaya.

Namie realises that they’re both unmoving and locked at the lips.

 

_Oh._

 

(She should have known.)

 

Shizuo breaks apart and pushes his head down for another kiss – soft and desperate and all the things that shouldn’t be shown towards a man like Izaya – and Namie can’t take her eyes away. Izaya’s fingers are twitching, the polished silver rings on his index fingers glittering in the bathroom light.

Namie silently closes the door behind her when the doorbell rings from downstairs, but the two males on the floor don’t seem to realise, as they’re ensnared into their own world.

 

“Kishitani-sensei,” She acknowledges, dipping her head slightly, and Shinra nods back, brows furrowed and lips forming a firm line

“What’s happened?”

It makes sense, Namie realises, that Shinra knows that something’s happened to Izaya instead, being the doctor he is, even without the excessive knowledge in the mentality field. She motions towards the staircase, but grabs at the doctor’s sleeve before he takes a step, “He’s fine,” She whispers, her voice a single red thread of assurance in the murky atmosphere.

Shinra looks at Namie straight in the eye, his own eyes wide with slight confusion, before realising that there’s an additional pair of shoes at the entrance – Shizuo’s.

“..That’s good,” His shoulders relax after a moment, “But I’ll have to do a double check afterwards.”

Namie nods, struggling to fight off the soft smile that makes it’s way onto her face.

-.-.-

“I’m sorry,” Shizuo repeats like a broken record, over and over and over, pressing soft kisses to chapped, clammy lips, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry..”  
There’s a silently nomadic ‘ _don’t be, it’s okay, it’s fine’_ drifting tersely in the air which Shizuo doesn’t know whether to ignore or to acknowledge.

“Shizu-chan..” Izaya rasps, “I’m here..”

“It’s my fault, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please Izaya..”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Then why are you lying on the damn ground bleeding out before I wrapped your wrist-?! I’m not as single-minded as you think I am, goddammit, I-I.. I…”

He never gets to finish the sentence.

 

Izaya completely forgets his nauseating urges to wipe away the salty tear tracks adorning his pale, pale cheeks that just aren’t his.

-.-.-

Namie ushers Shinra to the couches, and sits down opposite him on one of the loveseats, where she leans forward onto the coffee table and tents her hands. Shinra’s eyes are focused and rigid behind his glasses. He breathes through his nose in resigned exhaustion and grunts, “Yagiri-san, I’m sure you have some questions for me,” He swallows, mouth dry and lips cracked when he runs his tongue over them, “Go on, I’m willing to answer.”

Namie eyes the doctor, shifting uncomfortably in her seat, “I suppose an interrogation is in order.”

“Ah, that’s quite a harsh way of wording, isn’t it?” Shinra can feel the tension of it all seeping into his bones, and it sets him on edge how what he might be asked or what he replies with could lead to undesirable consequences with his two high-school ‘friends’.

 

“I’m aware of your concerns, Kishitani-sensei,” Namie drags Shinra away from his thoughts, “And it’s fine if you’re not willing. I’m sure Izaya would like it like that.”

“Ah?” Shinra chuckles with mirth, “You’ve changed, Yagiri-san, from what Izaya told me about you before this entire circumstance.” To this, Namie chortles with him, arms now crossed together, “Oh, I see. I like that imagery of my employer whining to you like the spoilt child that he is.”

 

(Shinra can’t help but agree.)

 

After a moment, Namie’s lips purse into a sly smile, “Instead of the original offer, what would you like for me to know, instead?”

-.-.-

“There,” Shinra declares, “That should be enough to suffice for now. Come to me or Yagiri-san later to change them if you feel like they’re too..” The words die out on his tongue from the hesitancy to voice out Izaya’s obsession. Whether it’s for the raven or for himself he’s not sure.

Izaya rubs at his white bandages on his wrist with futile efforts, and closes his eyes, breathes, and tries not to think about the scabbing blood cells forming by the second. It makes him twitch, with how much he wants to antiseptic the wound two or three or eleven more times, and how he’s turned into such an obsessive-compulsive _freak_ within the last few months.

It feels like this is all just a mocking dream and that he’ll wake up from it unscathed and unchanged – away from this half-hell frozen over.

 

Shinra’s voice shatters the already-brittle pieces of that hope.

“Izaya, I-” There’s a small choked sound, like Shinra tries to ensnare back his words suddenly before they can run too wild. He ponders his selection of words for a second before shaking his head to some extent, “Are you still taking your pills?”

Izaya lets out a hoarse laugh, like sandpaper grinding against a blackboard obnoxiously, “Do you really think I’m that blind, oh great doctor?” Shinra blinks, and Izaya goes on, “I understand antidepressant drug doses well enough. The amount of Paroxetine in total you’re prescribing me is beyond the average requirements for normal OCD. Tell me, Shinra,” He narrows his rusty eyes, “Did you actually think that I had depression?”

“Yeah.”

The answer comes out without so much as a hitch and it momentarily throws Izaya off the loop, before his lips splay out into a smile, which unfolds into a grin, then a giggle spills from his throat and he’s bent over, his laugh residing on the borderline of manic, amused and desperate all at the same time.

Shinra watches, face unchanging at his friend who can’t seem to be able to catch a decent breath, having been confronted by this scene many times already. But yet, something this time makes his chest ache inside, like he’s suffering a mild case of heartburn while watching Izaya in the midst of struggling against a tidal wave of realization and his own denial.

 

“Well, aren’t you the disingenuous human,” Izaya finally speaks, hysterical sneer still pasted like wet paper on a rock on his face, “This is the reason why I like humans, so unpredictable, so much like paradoxes in their own right-!” The sneer turns twisted while his eyes are burning bright in the lights of his living room.

 

Shinra closes his eyes and tries to block out the senseless frenzied cries of help.

-.-.-

“You’ve started cutting before you were aware that Shizuo-kun was at the door.”

“Yeah.”

There’s a sigh laced with tiredness from Shinra along with a small turmoil of emotions even himself doesn’t seem to be able to decipher.

“You knew that you could be able to bleed to death.”

“Mm.”

Shinra’s brows crease more ever so slightly, “So why?”

 

(It’s always _why, why, why_ )

 

Izaya’s smile only spreads like a wildfire in summer.

-.-.-

He loses contact with Shizuo for three months.

He doesn’t realise at first, too busy trying to shoo Shinra away from his dieting plans and medication dosages and pestering him in general. He’s well aware that Shinra’s just worried for him, but it’s starting to grate on his nerves, and grate _hard_.

Namie’s been quieter than usual, no snappy insults thrown here and there, or granny-ish nagging about the daily necessities which Izaya is lacking in a large amount (she instead tries to choke him with the spoon and it’s contents by force).

 

When he does have the time to let his mind wander to Shizuo again, it’s pouring outside.

There’s no shrill ringing of the doorbell or sopping wet shoes at the doorway, though.

-.-.-

Another three months fly past him senselessly.

Everyday makes him feel like he’s trapped in a daze and that he’s neither regressing nor moving forward. It makes him feel contentment and alarm at the same time.

He’s finally gathered the wits to turn on the television with his bare hands – _improvement_ , Shinra and Namie would rejoice silently – and finally quench his never-ending need for information and what’s happening to the world that’s all around him yet isolated from him completely at the same time.

 

There’s nothing new on the channels, the same old advertisements and over-exaggerating reports on the movement of various colour gangs – all predictable, all the same, _all the same_.

A report comes up on a businessman shot dead at the rooftop of his company’s headquarters, perking up the informant’s ears slightly, but then he decides that the police will soon patch that up, and hesitantly changes the channel yet again.

 

_“Ikebukuro’s weather today will be of high precipitation and soaring humidity levels, with winds hitting a speed of-”_

_“We are now at the site of the construction of the newest and-”_

_“Welcome back to 666 News Ikebukuro, today we-”_

_“Yesterday evening, a man has been found deceased in his apartment from an extraordinarily high overdose of opioid found in a large number of painkillers.”_

 

Izaya’s eyes flicker lazily over to the screen, the niggling need to disinfect the remote control once again tingling at his fingers. He realises for some unfathomable reason, that he can’t seem to change the channel – his hands cold and clammy.

So instead, he opts for watching the screen and the unfolding scene which chills him to the core for _no reason at all_.

 

_“There are no witnesses at the scene, and it is believed that the man has committed suicide, but forensics are still going underway. The name of the citizen, according to dental records and official birth certificates is-”_

 

Izaya can’t look away from the television screen and his fingers feel frozen in arctic zero.

 

_“Heiwajima Shizuo.”_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_(It’s my fault, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.)_

 

 

                            

 

 

 

 

 

 

The door opens with a gust of chilly wind and Namie’s back from her trip to the greengrocer’s.

-.-.-

Half a year is gone into oblivion and time yet again waits for no one.

They’ve finally held a funeral for Shizuo – it’s silent, empty and the atmosphere is filled with a thick remorse. It’s almost suffocating with the sea of black enveloping them.

There’s only a few choice people at the ceremony – Celty, Shinra, Kadota, Tom and Kasuka.

 

Izaya stays at home, with the crumpled funerary invitation thrown onto the floor and he’s curled into himself on the side of the couch. Namie’s cutting up the store-bought tuna – fatty tuna seems to have her boss throw up nowadays instead – to the best of her ability, when she hears a small rasp that sounds not unlike an abused child’s.

 

_“Namie.”_

_“Yes?”_

_“Are you still there?”_

 

It’s the same question he’s been repeating like a mantra for the past hour. Namie can only walk over to him and answer his questions softly.

 

_“Yes.”_

_“Don’t go, it’s not your fault.”_

_“It’s not my fault.”_

 

Her fingers curl into his gently, and they’re cold. Frozen.

Izaya’s stony touch alone sends her heart swelling with pity.

She covers her other hand over Izaya’s as well in a futile attempt to warm it up again.

 

_“Don’t leave me.”_

(She knows that there’s no amount of faux-hopeful words that will satisfy him, so instead she clenches her hands tighter around his and gives him nothing.)

**Author's Note:**

> This oneshot has positively wrecked my already-nonexistant updating schedule for my only chapter story


End file.
